Finance - State of the Portfolio

DISCLAIMER: I am an amateur investor doing this strictly for entertainment (and self-education) purposes. None of the information or recommendations listed in this blog should in any way be considered an endorsement (positive or negative) of the companies that will be discussed. I bear no responsibility whatsoever of the usage of information posted here.


Whew, that was a whirlwind few days there! Have not had time to blog these past 3 days.

anyway, looks like my Energy and Metals portfolio is holding up ok so far.

NUMBERS:

-COP: -3.12% since 7/16/07
-CCJ: +1.96%
-E -1.66%
-PAL +10.17%
-CHK +1.76%

Overall, the pot's present value: $10,037 (-0.06%). Not too bad.

POSITIVES
-General opinion on COP seems to be good. Expected to ride the oil wave.
-CCJ is rumored to be in a bid to acquire Paladin, an Australian uranium miner. This could be a good buy for CCJ which revealed earlier this week that their Cigar Lake mine will be production later than expected this bringing output down. Paladin had been rated high on most reports I have read so far.
-CHK announced a deal with APC which would let CHK explore and evaluate a substantial area of land in West Texas. I need to do more research on what is going on with APC and what exactly are they looking for.
-PAL is really looking good so far. 2Q production numbers were great and this helped push them higher this week. Let's get more of that Palladium people!

NEGATIVES
-COP got retro-taxed by the Chavez regime in Venezuela for getting out of the contract. Surprisingly this has not affected them so far. Plus their CEO wants the govt to introduce and oil price insurance to promote alternate fuel development.
-CCJ kinda worries me a bit as every article I read it becomes clearer that we have more uranium in stock than we need. All evidence points to Uranium stocks being highly overvalued at this point. Maybe I got in at the wrong side of the curve. But then again, maybe not. The markets for some reason are still in love with Uranium.
-The biggest power generating Nuclear reactor in Japan was hit by a earthquake this week. Dodgy estimates of radioactive spills into the nearby river are being reported. There is a danger that as soon as the general public and the investors hear radioactive spills, Cherbobyl will come to mind. See above point why there is concern for Uranium related stocks.

SUMMARY AND LINKS
Overall, it was a pretty educational week for me. Keep upto date with all 5 holdings and followed the news. I really like the zman blog for oil (it is in my links, check it out). Rajiv forwarded an interesting link energy investment strategies (google the whole phrase). I have to say that site was pretty informative about the oil industry and investment strategies. The guy who runs it apparently a Harvard alum who invests his family's money exclusively in the energy sector. His synopsis about 'Peak Oil' is worth a read.